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A Factor Analysis of Women's Measurements taken for Garment and Pattern Construction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Helen Heath
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Abstract

In order to facilitate garment and pattern construction, a research which involved taking a minimum of fifty-five measurements on several thousand women was conducted by the Bureau of Home Economics. Partial correlations with age held constant were computed for a representative group of 4,128 of the women. The correlations among twenty-nine of these variables served as the basis of the present study. By a combination of the multiple-group and the centroid method of factoring, five factors were extracted. After twenty-nine rotations, simple structure was evident, and the factors were interpreted as bone length, size of joints, circumference below the waist, circumference of extremities, and circumference above the waist. The intercorrelations of the primaries were computed, and two second-order factors were extracted. One of these seems to be primarily related to the growth of fatty tissue and the other to the development of the bones.

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1952 , pp. 87 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 1952 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

*

The author wishes to express her appreciation to Professor L. L. Thurstone and to the members of the Psychometric Laboratory Staff for advice relative to this study.

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